Frayn Yong Kian Ming is an amateur visual artist who recently graduated with a Diploma in Fine Arts from LASALLE College of the Arts. Prior to his fine arts training, Frayn also obtained a Diploma in Interior Architecture and Design.

In Fragile Structures -one of his earlier series of sculptures pieced together using mechanical pencil lead- Frayn explores underlying structures and frameworks in the urban context. “Like architecture, the notion of structures are fundamental to all constructs,” he adds. “They are the backbone to systems whereas on the other hand they can also be the network of human and human relationships, assuring the working of our daily lives.”

However to Frayn, even though these structures can give rise to magnificent forms, what we may perceive to be seemingly rigid, may in fact be very brittle and prone to collapse with a single touch. This state of fragility draws the permanence of existence and destruction so close only to be separated by a hair’s breadth.

In the recent LASALLE graduation show, Frayn exhibited a sculpture of a pencil lead skull alongside with a series of drawings titled Vanitas, meaning emptiness in Latin. “In this work, the fragile lead structures form into something we can identity as a human skull suggesting the temporal and corporeal state of mortality.”

Frayn also sees his sculptures as drawings seeking to transcend the flat surface of paper into 3 dimensional physical forms through the use of the same drawing medium (graphite) itself. These sculptures also seem to mimic computer-aided drawings blurring the boundaries of flat, physical and virtual space.